Printify gains funding to expand print-on-demand

Berdigans: aiming to transform ecommerce with on-demand production
Berdigans: aiming to transform ecommerce with on-demand production

Fast-growing print-on-demand ecommerce platform Printify has secured a multimillion pound investment to fuel its expansion plans.

The Latvia-headquartered firm was set up in 2015. It provides a platform that links the “creator economy” of micro businesses and individuals with print providers able to customise and drop ship merchandise on demand. 

It has raised $45m (£32.6m) in a funding round led by Index Ventures, and also including Virgin Group, H&M Group and a number of tech and entertainment industry investors. 

Printify currently works with more than 100 print providers around the world, in the USA, Canada, China, Australia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland and the UK. 

Its current UK print partners are M-A-N-A Factory part of The Hut Group, Print Clever, Prodigi, T Shirt & Sons, and WPaPS. 

Printify founder and CEO James Berdigans said the past year had brought significant changes “as customers increasingly chose to shop online, while more and more merchants were looking for opportunities to earn additional income”.

“We’re proud to serve the growing demand from creators and entrepreneurs and plan to continue our rapid growth by expanding into new markets and investing in a team of the most talented and ambitious people from across Europe,” he said. 

“Our mission is to build an ever-evolving platform that lets anyone start an ecommerce business with as little investment and risk as possible. Our vision is to transform ecommerce from mass manufacturing to on-demand production, eliminating excess stock and reducing environmental waste.”

The business doubled its headcount last year to nearly 500, and currently has 70 vacancies in product engineering, marketing and design roles. 

It currently offers more than 300 products, and as well as serving micro businesses and entrepreneurs, also has an enterprise option for high volume merchants placing more than 10,000 orders per day. 

The move is a further vote of confidence in the potential for print-on-demand. Last month, hyper local printing platform Gelato raised $240m to boost its worldwide expansion plans.